According to the websight, basketball-reference.com, about 3,980 players have
played in the National Basketball Association.

In addition, about 7,273 players have been drafted since the NBA draft was
instituted in 1950.(That number may be off a little because some players were
drafted two or three times in earlier years of the draft.)The number of players
drafted who also played in the NBA is about 2,955.

It is always fun to think about “what ifs’ in sports.I wanted to compare a player’s birth year with his draft year.

In a perfect world, a player would enter the NBA draft 22 years after his
birth year.We know there are all types of reasons why a player could be younger
or older; especially as the draft rules stand now.However, back in the day,
most players did not enter the NBA draft until age 22.

There are many “what ifs”.

Rick Barry (#5) and Keith Erickson (#21) were both born in 1944 yet were drafted
in 1965 by the San Francisco Warriors.Bill Buntin of Michigan was the overall
#1 pick in 1965 as the territorial pick of the Detroit Pistons.Bill Bradley
of Princeton was the overall #3 pick in 1965 as the territorial pick of the New York Knicks.

The #1 pick of the 1966 draft was Cazzie Russell of Michigan since territorial
picks were eliminated after the 1965 draft.Where would Barry and Erickson have
been drafted in 1966?

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (UCLA), Pete Maravich (LSU) and Rick Mount (Purdue) were
all born in 1947, yet Kareem was drafted in 1969, while Maravich and Mount were drafted in 1970 as was Calvin Murphy (born
1948).

There are all kinds of these scenarios in the draft.Any one of them could have changed the entire history of the NBA.

I will send these to you in installments by decades of the player’s
birth year beginning with the 1920s and 1930s.